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Thanks to everyone for the great responses to my summer reading rant! I am so glad to see that I am not the only person who is upset with the static, stagnant lists handed out by too many schools across the country. I am also thrilled to hear from so many others that their districts are not like that. I love hearing about what is and isn’t working in your schools.

There are a lot of great ideas being kicked around in the blogosphere right now. I think we, as bloggers, are in a prime position for affecting change when it comes to summer reading lists. I am thrilled by the passion and ideas that my rant seemed to dredge up. I am looking forward to working on a few of these ideas and seeing if we can make enjoyable summer reading an important part of growing up!

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I’m a literacy coach in Colorado, also the mom of a struggling middle school reader. I adopted my son when he was 9 and have wooed him into literacy through magazines, graphic novels, and most recently DIARY OF A WIMPY KID, RODERICK RULES, and the INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET. Since day one, we have had a family reading time, thirty minutes each night when everyone sits quietly with a book or magazine of their choice.

This summer, though, has been different. My son is entering ninth grade. When we went to orientation, we were giving the summer reading list. It only has one book, but it’s a toughie- SNOW IN AUGUST. I am dragging him through it, one chapter (about 30 minutes each day). I read it aloud, then we give the chapter a title, write down key events (I know neither of us will remember many details come late August), look up stuff he finds interesting, e.g. the golem. I’m trying hard to make it as fun and painless as possible.

Still, it occurred to me the other day how little reading HE has actually done this summer. I can’t help but wonder, then, what exactly the high school hoped to accomplish by assigning this book. I’m going out today to look for some of the books on your Amazon list!

P.S. I wrote about SNOW IN AUGUST on my blog (carolwscorner.blogspot.com) a couple of days ago. Wish I knew how to create a link so you could just go there if you wanted to!